Mountain towns
Mountain towns in Calabria
11 towns
Towns inside a named range: the Alps, the Dolomites, the Apennines, the Pollino, the Aspromonte. All above 500 meters and half above 800, where the season decides the trip.
The towns
San Giovanni in Fiore
Province: Cosenza · 1,049 m
The capital of the Sila Grande at 1,049 meters, Italy's most populated commune above a thousand.
Alessandria del Carretto
Province: Cosenza · 1,043 m
The highest village in the Pollino at 1,043 meters, the only Italian commune carrying its founder's full name, with a fir-tree ritual every 3 May.
Mormanno
Province: Cosenza · 840 m
A Pollino mountain borgo at 840 meters between the Costa and Vernita ridges, known for lentils, white poverelli beans and the bocconotto pastry.
Serrastretta
Province: Catanzaro · 840 m
The chair town of the Reventino massif, founded in 1383 in a narrow gorge between two mountain ranges, still weaving straw seats by hand.
Cicala
Province: Catanzaro · 829 m
A village of 841 people at 829 meters, founded in 1616 by farmers asking for land.
Bova
Province: Reggio Calabria · 820 m
The capital of the Bovesìa, a 454-resident Aspromonte hilltop borgo at 820m and the cultural center of the Grecanic minority, where the Calabrian-Greek dialect descended from Byzantine-era Greek is still spoken by elders.
Albidona
Province: Cosenza · 810 m
A hill village at 810 meters between the Pollino and the Ionian, identified by ancient writers as Leutarnia, the city founded by Calchas after Troy.
Spezzano della Sila
Province: Cosenza · 800 m
A Sila plateau borgo at 800 meters, the gateway to the national park and its high forests.
Morano Calabro
Province: Cosenza · 694 m
A conical hill of stone houses stacked under a Norman-Swabian castle at the southern gate of the Pollino, called Italy's nativity village.
Caccuri
Province: Crotone · 646 m
A 646-meter Presila borgo dominated by a sixth-century Byzantine castle with a cylindrical tower built in 1882, birthplace of Renaissance statesman Cicco Simonetta.
Gizzeria
Province: Catanzaro · 600 m
An Arbëreshë hill village at 600 meters above the Gulf of Sant'Eufemia, with kitesurf beaches and brackish lagoons on the Tyrrhenian below.
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns
Scheggino
Province: Perugia
Triangular castle village on the banks of the Nera at 280 meters, where the first commercial Italian truffle company was founded in 1852.
Rivello
Province: Potenza
A 479-meter ridge above the Noce valley where Lombards and Byzantines lived side by side, holding Latin and Greek rites until the seventeenth century.
Furore
Province: Salerno
The Amalfi Coast village with no piazza and no center, scattered on rock walls 300 meters above the only fjord in southern Italy.
Borgo Valsugana
Province: Trento
The valley town built on both banks of the Brenta in lower Valsugana, with a hilltop castle above and a contemporary art project in the side valley.
Sepino
Province: Campobasso
A hilltop borgo at 698 meters at the foot of the Matese, two kilometers above the Roman Saepinum, the open-air city the sheep tracks built.